WALNUT CREEK, Calif.—Although CTV advertising continues to see rapid growth, a new survey indicates that buyers remain skeptical of some of the performance claims and increasingly are asking hard questions about measurement, accountability and business impact of their CTV ad campaigns.
These concerns stand in stark contrast to the longstanding claims that connected TV platforms can provide advertisers with clear and convincing data showing the impact of their ad campaigns.
While those claims have helped CTV platforms grab an every growing share of the ad market, new research from Jamloop, a performance CTV platform that connects streaming TV to real business outcomes, shows that CTV is winning a larger share of marketing budgets but not a lot of trust.
Based on a survey of 120 senior brand and agency marketers, the report, “CTV Is Winning Budget. Trust Is Still Catching Up” found that 50% of marketers say their CTV budgets increased year over year, and 63% say CTV already plays a strong performance role in their media mix or is becoming a more accountable performance channel.
However, only one in three buyers (33%) say they fully trust most platform-reported performance claims, while 62% express some level of skepticism.
Accountability standards also remain uneven: Only 42% say CTV is currently held to the same accountability standards as search and social. And, marketers still struggle to defend the spend internally. Only 39% say they feel very confident defending CTV investment to leadership based on current measurement and attribution.
The researchers suggest that better proof could unlock the next wave of growth: More than 70% say they would increase CTV investment if measurement, attribution, and proof of business outcomes improved. Respondents also said that trust concerns remain part of the performance story. More than 60% say they are concerned about fraud or misrepresented inventory in CTV environments.
“The industry has already proven that advertisers want CTV,” said Jeff Fagel, CMO at Jamloop. “What buyers are asking now is a tougher question: what business outcomes does CTV actually drive? Advertisers don’t need another dashboard. They need proof they can defend. The platforms that can prove business impact in ways marketers can actually see and feel, not just through dashboards showing media metrics moving in the right direction, will be the ones that win the next wave of CTV investment.”
The research also points to a broader shift in the media mix. More than 63% of respondents say they are seeing at least some diminishing returns from lower-funnel channels such as paid search and paid social, creating an opening for CTV to play a larger role in performance-focused strategies.
At the same time, marketers remain divided on what CTV performance should actually mean. While 35% prioritize qualified leads, 30% point to online sales and revenue, 30% define performance through revenue or sales lift, and 24% focus on store visits, appointments, or calls. That fragmentation makes it harder to establish common success metrics, compare results across campaigns, and build broader confidence in the category.
For many buyers, performance now means more than site traffic or media metrics alone. It means proving online sales, offline revenue, leads, visits, installs, or broader business impact in a way leadership teams can recognize and trust.
“CTV no longer needs to prove it belongs in the media mix,” Fagel added. “It needs to prove it belongs in the next wave of performance budgets.”
To download the full report, visit jamloop.com.
